Books: Heather and Snow
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George MacDonald >> Heather and Snow
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'Am I no yer ain lass-bairn, father? Whaur wud I be wi' a father 'at
didna keep his word? and what less cud I du nor help ony man to keep
his word? Gien breach o' the faimily-word cam throuw me, my life wud
gang frae me.--Wad ye hae me tell the laddie's mither? I wudna like to
expose the folly o' him, but gien ye think it necessar, I'll gang the
morn's mornin.'
'I dinna think that wud be weel. It wad but raise a strife atween the
twa, ohn dune an atom o' guid. She wud only rage at the laddie, and pit
him in sic a reid heat as wad but wald thegither him and his wull sae
'at they wud maist never come in twa again. And though ye gaed and
tauld her yer ain sel, my leddy wad lay a' the wyte upo' you nane the
less. There's no rizzon, tap nor tae, i' the puir body, and ye're
naewise b'und to her farther nor to du richt by her.'
'I'm glaid ye dinna want me to gang,' answered Kirsty. 'She carries
hersel that gran' 'at ye're maist driven to the consideration hoo
little she's worth; and that's no the richt speerit anent onybody or
thing God thoucht worth makin.'
CHAPTER IX
AT CASTLE WEELSET
Francie's anger had died down a good deal by the time he reached home.
He was, as his father's friend had just said, by no means a bad sort of
fellow, only he was full of himself, and therefore of little use to
anybody. His mother and he, when not actually at strife, were
constantly on the edge of a quarrel. The two must have their own way,
each of them. Francie's way was sometimes good, his mother's sometimes
not bad, but both were usually selfish. The boy had fits of generosity,
the woman never, except toward her son. If she thought of something to
please him, good and well! if he wanted anything of her, it would never
do! The idea must be her own, or meet with no favour. If she imagined
her son desired a thing, she felt it one she never could grant, and
told him so: thereafter Francis would not rest until he had compassed
the thing. Sudden division and high words would follow, with
speechlessness on the mother's part in the rear, which might last for
days. Becoming all at once tired of it, she would in the morning appear
at breakfast looking as if nothing had ever come between them, and they
would be the best of friends for a few days, or perhaps a week, seldom
longer. Some fresh discord, nowise different in character from the
preceding, would arise between them, and the same weary round be
tramped again, each always in the right, and the other in the wrong.
Every time they made it up, their relation seemed unimpaired, but it
was hardly possible things should go on thus and not at length quite
estrange their hearts.
In matters of display, to which Francis had much tendency, his mother's
own vanity led her to indulge and spoil him, for, being hers, she was
always pleased he should look his best. On his real self she neither
had nor sought any influence. Insubordination or arrogance in him, her
dignity unslighted, actually pleased her: she liked him to show his
spirit: was it not a mark of his breeding?
She was a tall and rather stout woman, with a pretty, small-featured,
regular face, and a thin nose with the nostrils pinched.
Castle Weelset was not much of a castle: to an ancient round tower,
discomfortably habitable, had been added in the last century a rather
large, defensible house. It stood on the edge of a gorge, crowning one
of its stony hills of no great height. With scarce a tree to shelter
it, the situation was very cold in winter, and it required a hardy
breeding to live there in comfort. There was little of a garden, and
the stables were somewhat ruinous. For the former fact the climate
almost sufficiently accounted, and for the latter, a long period of
comparative poverty.
The young laird did not like farming, and had no love for books: in
this interval between school and college, he found very little to
occupy him, and not much to amuse him. Had Kirsty and her family proved
as encouraging as he had expected, he would have made use of his new
pony almost only to ride to Corbyknowe in the morning and back to the
castle at night.
His mother knew old Barclay, as she called him, well enough--that is,
not at all, and had never shown him any cordiality, anything, indeed,
better than condescension. To treat him like a gentleman, even when he
sat at her own table, she would have counted absurd. He had never been
to the castle since the day after her husband's funeral, when she
received him with such emphasized superiority that he felt he could not
go again without running the risk either of having his influence with
the boy ruined, or giving occasion to a nature not without generosity
to take David's part against his mother. Thenceforward, therefore, he
contented himself with giving Francis invariable welcome, and doing
what he could to make his visits pleasant. Chiefly, on such not
infrequent occasions, the boy delighted in drawing from his father's
friend what tales about his father, and adventures of their campaigns
together, he had to tell; and in this way David's wife and children
heard many things about himself which would not otherwise have reached
them. Naturally, Kirsty and Francie grew to be good friends; and after
they went to the parish school, there were few days indeed on which
they did not walk at least as far homeward together as the midway
divergence of their roads permitted. It was not wonderful, therefore,
that at length Francis should be, or should fancy himself in love with
Kirsty. But I believe all the time he thought of marrying her as a
heroic deed, in raising the girl his mother despised to share the lofty
position he and that foolish mother imagined him to occupy. The
anticipation of opposition from his mother naturally strengthened his
determination; of opposition on the part of Kirsty, he had not dreamed.
He took it as of course that, the moment he stated his intention,
Kirsty would be charmed, her mother more than pleased, and the stern
old soldier overwhelmed with the honour of alliance with the son of his
colonel. I do not doubt, however, that he had an affection for Kirsty
far deeper and better than his notion of their relations to each other
would indicate. Although it was mainly his pride that suffered in his
humiliating dismissal, he had, I am sure, a genuine heartache as he
galloped home. When he reached the castle, he left his pony to go where
he would, and rushed to his room. There, locking the door that his
mother might not enter, he threw himself on his bed in the luxurious
consciousness of a much-wronged lover. An uneducated country girl, for
as such he regarded her, had cast from her, not without insult, his
splendidly generous offer of himself!
Poor king Cophetua did not, however, shed many tears for the loss of
his recusant beggar-maid. By and by he forgot everything, found he had
gone to sleep, and, endeavouring to weep again, did not succeed.
He grew hungry soon, and went down to see what was to be had. It was
long past the usual hour for dinner, but Mrs. Gordon had not seen him
return, and had had it put back--so to make the most of an opportunity
of quarrel not to be neglected by a conscientious mother. She let it
slide nevertheless.
'Gracious, you've been crying!' she exclaimed, the moment she saw him.
Now certainly Francis had not cried much; his eyes were,
notwithstanding, a little red.
He had not yet learned to lie, but he might then have made his first
assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed
deeper, and made no answer.
'You've been fighting!' said his mother.
'I haena,' he returned with rude indignation. 'Gien I had been, div ye
think I wud hae grutten?'
'You forget yourself, laird!' remarked Mrs. Gordon, more annoyed with
his Scotch than the tone of it. 'I would have you remember I am
mistress of the house!'
'Till I marry, mother!' rejoined her son.
'Oblige me in the meantime,' she answered, 'by leaving vulgar language
outside it.'
Francis was silent; and his mother, content with her victory, and in
her own untruthfulness of nature believing he had indeed been fighting
and had had the worse of it, said no more, but began to pity and pet
him. A pot of his favourite jam presently consoled the love-wounded
hero--in the acceptance of which consolation he showed himself far less
unworthy than many a grown man, similarly circumstanced, in the choice
of his.
CHAPTER X
DAVID AND FRANCIS
One day there was a market at a town some eight or nine miles off, and
thither, for lack of anything else to do, Francis had gone to display
himself and his pony, which he was riding with so tight a curb that the
poor thing every now and then reared in protest against the agony he
suffered.
On one of these occasions Don was on the point of falling backward,
when a brown wrinkled hand laid hold of him by the head, half pulling
the reins from his rider's hand, and ere he had quite settled again on
his forelegs, had unhooked the chain of his curb, and fastened it some
three links looser. Francis was more than indignant, even when he saw
that the hand was Mr. Barclay's: was he to be treated as one who did
not know what he was about!
'Hoots, my man!' said David gently, 'there's no occasion to put a
water-chain upo' the bonny beastie: he has a mou like a leddy's! and to
hae 't linkit up sae ticht is naething less nor tortur til 'im!--It's a
won'er to me he hasna broken your banes and his ain back thegither,
puir thing!' he added, patting and stroking the spirited little
creature that stood sweating and trembling. 'I thank you, Mr. Barclay,'
said Francis insolently, 'but I am quite able to manage the brute
myself. You seem to take me for a fool!'
''Deed, he's no far aff ane 'at cud ca' a bonny cratur like that a
brute!' returned David, nowise pleased to discover such hardness in one
whom he would gladly treat like a child of his own. It was a great
disappointment to him to see the lad getting farther away from the
possibility of being helped by him. 'What 'ud yer father say to see ye
illuse ony helpless bein! Yer father was awfu guid til 's horse-fowk.'
The last word was one of David's own: he was a great lover of animals.
'I'll do with my own as I please!' cried Francis, and spurred the pony
to pass David. But one stalwart hand held the pony fast, while the
other seized his rider by the ankle. The old man was now thoroughly
angry with the graceless youth.
'God bless my sowl!' he cried, 'hae ye the spurs on as weel? Stick ane
o' them intil him again, and I'll cast ye frae the seddle. I' the thick
o' a fecht, the lang blades playin aboot yer father's heid like lichts
i' the north, he never stack spur intil 's chairger needless!'
'I don't see,' said Francis, who had begun to cool down a little, 'how
he could have enjoyed the fight much if he never forgot himself! I
should forget everything in the delight of the battle!'
'Yer father, laddie, never forgot onything but himsel. Forgettin himsel
left him free to min' a'thing forbye. _Ye_ wud forget ilka thing but
yer ain rage! Yer father was a great man as weel's a great soger,
Francie, and a deevil to fecht, as his men said. I hae mysel seen by
the set mou 'at the teeth war clinched i' the inside o' 't, whan a' the
time on the broo o' 'im sat never a runkle. Gien ever there was a man
'at cud think o' twa things at ance, your father cud think o' three;
and thae three war God, his enemy, and the beast aneath him. Francie,
Francie, i' the name o' yer father I beg ye to regaird the richts o'
the neebour ye sit upo'. Gien ye dinna that, ye'll come or lang to
think little o' yer human neebour as weel, carin only for what ye get
oot o' 'im!'
A voice inside Francis took part with the old man, and made him yet
angrier. Also his pride was the worse annoyed that David Barclay, his
tenant, should, in the hearing of two or three loafers gathered behind
him, of whose presence the old man was unaware, not only rebuke him,
but address him by his name, and the diminutive of it. So when David,
in the appeal that burst from his enthusiastic remembrance of his
officer in the battle-field, let the pony's head go, Francis dug his
spurs in his sides, and darted off like an arrow. The old man for a
moment stared open-mouthed after him. The fools around laughed: he
turned and walked away, his head sunk on his breast.
Francis had not ridden far before he was vexed with himself. He was not
so much sorry, as annoyed that he had behaved in fashion undignified.
The thought that his childish behaviour would justify Kirsty in her
opinion of him, added its sting. He tried to console himself with the
reflection that the sort of thing ought to be put an end to at once:
how far, otherwise, might not the old fellow's interference go! I am
afraid he even said to himself that such was a consequence of
familiarity with inferiors. Yet angry as he was at his fault-finding,
he would have been proud of any approval from the lips of the old
soldier. He rode his pony mercilessly for a mile or so, then pulled up,
and began to talk pettingly to him, which I doubt if the little
creature found consoling, for love only makes petting worth anything,
and the love here was not much to the front.
About halfway home, he had to ford a small stream, or go round two
miles by a bridge. There had been much rain in the night, and the
stream was considerably swollen. As he approached the ford, he met a
knife-grinder, who warned him not to attempt it: he had nearly lost his
wheel in it, he said. But Francis always found it hard to accept
advice. His mother had so often predicted from neglect of hers evils
which never followed, that he had come to think counsel the one thing
not to be heeded.
'Thank you,' he said; 'I think we can manage it!' and rode on.
When he reached the ford, where of all places he ought to have left the
pony's head free, he foolishly remembered the curb-chain, and getting
off, took it up a couple of links.
But when he remounted, whether from dread of the rush of the brown
water, or resentment at the threat of renewed torture, the pony would
not take the ford, and a battle royal arose between them, in which
Francis was so far victorious that, after many attempts to run away,
little Don, rendered desperate by the spur, dashed wildly into the
stream, and went plunging on for two or three yards. Then he fell, and
Francis found himself rolling in the water, swept along by the current.
A little way lower down, at a sharp turn of the stream under a high
bank, was a deep pool, a place held much in dread by the country lads
and lasses, being a haunt of the kelpie. Francis knew the spot well,
and had good reason to fear that, carried into it, he must be drowned,
for he could not swim. Roused by the thought to a yet harder struggle,
he succeeded in getting upon his feet, and reaching the bank, where he
lay for a while, exhausted. When at length he came to himself and rose,
he found the water still between him and home, and nothing of his pony
to be seen. If the youth's good sense had been equal to his courage, he
would have been a fine fellow: he dashed straight into the ford,
floundered through it, and lost his footing no more than had Don,
treated properly. When he reached the high ground on the other side, he
could still see nothing of him, and with sad heart concluded him
carried into the Kelpie's Hole, never more to be beheld alive:--what
would his mother and Mr. Barclay say? Shivering and wretched, and with
a growing compunction in regard to his behaviour to Don, he crawled
wearily home.
Don, however, had at no moment been much in danger. Rid of his master,
he could take very good care of himself. He got to the bank without
difficulty, and took care it should be on the home-side of the stream.
Not once looking behind him after his tyrant, he set off at a good
round trot, much refreshed by his bath, and rejoicing in the thought of
his loose box at castle Weelset.
In a narrow part of the road, however, he overtook a cart of Mr.
Barclay's; and as he attempted to pass between it and the steep brae,
the man on the shaft caught at his bridle, made him prisoner, tied him
to the cart behind, and took him to Corbyknowe. When David came home
and saw him, he conjectured pretty nearly what had happened, and tired
as he was set out for the castle. Had he not feared that Francis might
have been injured, he would not have cared to go, much as he knew it
must relieve him to learn that his pony was safe.
Mrs. Gordon declined to see David, but he ascertained from the servants
that Francis had come home half-drowned, leaving Don in the Kelpie's
Hole.
David hesitated a little whether or not to punish him for his behaviour
to the pony by allowing him to remain in ignorance of his safety, and
so leaving him to the _agen-bite_ of conscience; but concluding that
such was not his part, he told them that the animal was safe at
Corbyknowe, and went home again.
But he wanted Francis to fetch the pony himself, therefore did not send
him, and in the meantime fed and groomed him with his own hands as if
he had been his friend's charger. Francis having just enough of the
grace of shame to make him shrink from going to Corbyknowe, his mother
wrote to David, asking why he did not send home the animal. David, one
of the most courteous of men, would take no order from any but his
superior officer, and answered that he would gladly give him up to the
young laird in person.
The next day Mrs. Gordon drove, in what state she could muster, to
Corbyknowe. Arrived there, she declined to leave her carriage,
requesting Mrs. Barclay, who came to the door, to send her husband to
her. Mrs. Barclay thought it better to comply.
David came in his shirt-sleeves, for he had been fetched from his work.
'If I understand your answer to my request, Mr. Barclay, you decline to
send back Mr. Gordon's pony. Pray, on what grounds?'
'I wrote, ma'am, that I should be glad to give him over to Mr. Francis
himself.'
'Mr. Gordon does not find it convenient to come all this way on foot.
In fact he declines to do it, and requests that you will send the pony
home this afternoon.'
'Excuse me, mem, but it's surely enough done that a man make known the
presence o' strays, and tak proper care o' them until they're claimt! I
was fain forbye to gie the bonny thing a bit pleesur in life: Francie's
ower hard upon him.'
'You forget, David Barclay, that Mr. Gordon is your landlord!'
'His father, mem, was my landlord, and his father's father was my
father's landlord; and the interests o' the landlord hae aye been oors.
Ither nor Francie's herty freen I can never be!'
'You presume on my late husband's kindness to you, Barclay!'
'Gien devotion be presumption, mem, I presume. Archibald Gordon was and
is my freen, and will be for ever. We hae been throuw ower muckle
thegither to change to are anither. It was for his sake and the
laddie's ain that I wantit him to come to me. I wantit a word wi' him
aboot that powny o' his. He'll never be true man 'at taks no tent
(_care_) o' dumb animals! You 'at's sae weel at hame i' the seddle
yersel, mem, micht tak a kin'ly care o' what's aneth his!'
'I will have no one interfere with my son. I am quite capable of
teaching him his duty myself.'
'His father requestit me to do what I could for him, mem.'
'His _late_ father, if you please, Barclay!'
'He s' never be Francie's _late_ father to Francie, gien I can help it,
mem! He may be your _late_ husband, mem, but he's my cornel yet, and I
s' keep my word til him! It'll no be lang noo, i' the natur o' things,
till I gang til him; and sure am I his first word 'll be aboot the
laddie: I wud ill like to answer him, "Archie, I ken naething aboot him
but what I cud weel wuss itherwise!" Hoo wud ye like to gie sic an
answer yersel, mem?'
'I'm surprised at a man of your sense, Barclay, thinking we shall know
one another in heaven! We shall have to be content with God there!'
'I said naething about h'aven, mem! Fowk may ken are anither and no be
in ae place. I took note i' the kirk last Sunday 'at Abrahaam kent the
rich man, and the rich man him, and they warna i' the same place.--But
ye'll lat the yoong laird come and see me, mem?' concluded David,
changing his tone and speaking as one who begged a favour; for the
thought of meeting his old friend and having nothing to tell him about
his boy, quenched his pride.
'Home, Thomas!' cried her late husband's wife to her coachman, and
drove away.
'Dod! they'll hae to gie that wife a hell til hersel!' said David,
turning to the door discomfited.
'And maybe she'll no like it whan she hes't!' returned his wife, who
had heard every word. 'There's fowk 'at's no fit company for onybody!
and I'm thinkin she's ane gien there bena anither!'
'I'll sen' Jeamie hame wi' the powny the nicht,' said David. 'A body
canna insist whaur fowk are no frien's. That weud grow to enmity, and
the en' o' a' guid. Na, we maun sen' hame the powny; and gien there be
ony grace i' the bairn, he canna but come and say thank ye!'
Mrs. Gordon rejoiced in her victory; but David's yielding showed itself
the true policy. Francis did call and thank him for taking care of Don.
He even granted that perhaps he had been too hard on the pony.
'Ye cud richteously expeck naething o' a powny o' his size that that
powny o' yours cudna du, Francie!' said David. 'But, in God's name,
dear laddie, be a richteous man. Gien ye requere no more than's fair
frae man or beast, ye'll maistly aye get it. But gien yer ootluik in
life be to get a'thing and gie naething, ye maun come to grief ae w'y
and a' w'ys. Success in an ill attemp is the warst failyie a man can
mak.'
But it was talking to the wind, for Francis thought, or tried to think
David only bent, like his mother, on finding fault with him. He made
haste to get away, and left his friend with a sad heart.
He rode on to the foot of the Horn, to the spot where Kirsty was
usually at that season to be found; but she saw him coming, and went up
the hill. Soon after, his mother contrived that he should pay a visit
to some relatives in the south, and for a time neither the castle nor
the Horn saw anything of him. Without returning home he went in the
winter to Edinburgh, where he neither disgraced nor distinguished
himself. David was to hear no ill of him. To be beyond his mother's
immediate influence was perhaps to his advantage, but as nothing
superior was substituted, it was at best but little gain. His
companions were like himself, such as might turn to worse or better, no
one could tell which.
CHAPTER XI
KIRSTY AND PHEMY
During the first winter which Francis spent at college, his mother was
in England, and remained there all the next summer and winter. When at
last she came home, she was even less pleasant than before in the eyes
of her household, no one of which had ever loved her. Throughout the
summer she had a succession of visitors, and stories began to spread
concerning strange doings at the castle. The neighbours talked of
extravagance, and the censorious among them of riotous living; while
some of the servants more than hinted that the amount of wine and
whisky consumed was far in excess of what served when the old colonel
was alive.
One of them who, in her mistress's frequent fits of laziness, acted as
housekeeper, had known David Barclay from his boyhood, and understood
his real intimacy with her late master: it was not surprising,
therefore, that she should open her mind to him, while keeping toward
everyone else a settled silence concerning her mistress's affairs: none
of the stories current in the country-side came from her. David was to
Mrs. Bremner the other side of a deep pit, into the bottom of which
whatever was said between them dropped.
'There'll come a catastrophe or lang,' said Mrs. Bremner one evening
when David Barclay overtook her on the road to the town, 'and that'll
be seen! The property's jist awa to the dogs! There's Maister Donal,
the factor, gaein aboot like are in a dilemm as to cuttin 's thro't or
blawin his harns oot! He daursna say a word, ye see! The auld laird
trustit him, and he's feart 'at he be blamit, but there's nae duin
onything wi' that wuman: the siller maun be forthcomin whan she's
wantin 't!'
'The siller's no hers ony mair nor the Ian'; a' 's the yoong laird's!'
remarked David.
'That's true; but she's i' the pooer o' 't till he come o' age; and
Maister Donal, puir man, mony's the time he 's jist driven to are mair
to get what's aye wantit and wantit! What comes o' the siller it jist
blecks me to think: there's no a thing aboot the hoose to shaw for 't!
And hearken, David, but latna baith lugs hear 't, for dreid the tane
come ower't again to the tither--I'm doobtin the drink's gettin a sair
grup o' her!'
''Deed I wudna be nane surprised!' returned David. 'Whatever micht want
in at her door, there's naething inside to baud it oot. Eh, to think o'
Archie Gordon takin til himsel sic a wife! that a man like him, o' guid
report, and come to years o' discretion--to think o' brains like his
turnin as fozy as an auld neep at sicht o' a bonny front til an ae wa'
hoose (_a house of but one wall_)! It canna be 'at witchcraft's clean
dune awa wi'!'
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